PHILADELPHIA --- The Washington Nationals had won the National League East, and so Jimmy Rollins, ever known for the art, would make one last withdraw from the Phillies’ dwindling big-timing account.

“If we are healthy,” Mr. We’re-the-team-to-beat would yap, “they are second place.”

While unnecessary, the comment was approved. For last year, and this one too, the Phillies were capable a three-figure win column. Yet it was for exactly that reason --- precisely because of Rollins’ big “if” --- that they would be forced to try that with their eyes closed, their breath held and their index fingers jammed in their ears.

The Phillies had reached the point in their decline where everything had to be perfect. That’s because they were becoming --- wait for it --- old. That is different from being brittle. That is different from being unfortunate. No, they were simply becoming a team more naturally prone to twisted joints, broken bones and achy obliques.

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In many ways, the Phillies had morphed into a 2008 tribute band, good enough to pass for the original, but only when the lighting was perfect and the sound system was scratch-free. But it didn’t happen that way. And with the revelation Saturday night that Ryan Howard will join Roy Halladay, Chase Utley and Carlos Ruiz among aging Phillies having required a senior moment on the disabled list even before the All-Star break, it reaffirmed the obvious: The tune is not going to change.

An MRI in the next couple of days should reveal whether Howard will require surgery and thus likely be lost for the season. It would be helpful to know. But if he misses one game or 15 or 30 or 60 or the rest of them, it’s not the particular injury that resonates. It is the pattern. The Phillies cannot stay healthy and, no, that is not simply an unfortunate business-cost. It is the risk they accepted when they relied on so many players closer to their Wall of Fame nights than to the sittings for their rookie-card portraits.

Though Howard had missed other recent games on merit, for hitting had left him stumped, the Saturday scratch was different. He was in the original lineup, ready to face Tim Hudson, against whom he had enjoyed sustained career success. He’d also hit a home run a night earlier, indicating that he might have begun to stir. But a twisted knee left him unable to play, so sometime after batting practice, Darin Ruf was careening south from Scranton, if only to provide a power threat beyond All-Star Domonic Brown.

Already nose-to-nose with the buy-or-sell decision, Ruben Amaro’s job had immediately become more complicated. The Phillies cannot expect to win a division championship without another power hitter. That means unless Ruf can be the cleanup force that Howard hadn’t been, Amaro has to find one, if not necessarily for the rest of this season, then the next one. The Phillies will never thrive in that ballpark in that division with a bantamweight’s knockout punch.

“We’ll see how the guys kind of step up,” the general manager said, early in the Phils-Braves game. “We’ve been swinging the bats generally pretty good, much better lately. And Ryan is obviously a very, very important part of that. But we’ll see how Darin does, and we will see how people do without Ryan being around. This is a big blow to us, because he is our best power threat, other than Domonic obviously. We’ll see how it goes over the next couple of weeks.”

That’s how it has been for two years. The Phillies keep waiting for a couple of weeks for healing. Just a few more weeks and Ruiz will be back … Utley’s oblique will be fine, in a couple of weeks … Halladay is looking good, but check back you-know-when. Now, it’s Howard, who is 33 with a repaired achilles and a knee that needs anything from an ice bag to a surgeon’s gifts.

The All-Star break is about a week away. If the Phillies are still looking at a sub-.500 record and a pound of MRI reports, Amaro should spend it as an auctioneer.